Linens and a story

When I first moved to London I read the Jane Austin novels, which made me cry.

I had chosen not to marry and my son was a baby. I was not within the scope of the novels.

And yet, up until then I had largely maintained the virtue of heroines, even when I hitchhiked. My clean white tennis shoes, pink gingham blouse, cut on the bias, and wheat jeans were chosen to show what I was really like.

I carried a silver letter opener shaped like a scimitar that had been given me by a handsome young man when we didn’t click. I carried it to use if someone tried something I did not agree to. And I agreed to little.

I am sure I had the country charm that I so valued. Though now that I am old, I wonder if I could have somehow gone from the image and feeling of virtue and goodness to marriage. I wonder if I had a bedroom with linens like those shown above, if I could have married.

I was asked to marry, that part I had down.

I remember in London when I was living with the topologist, having a dream about the tunnel of love, not a ride, more like an obstacle course. I had been in the dark making slow progress when I saw daylight and the opening that would take me into the world, but between me and that place I wanted to be was a pond of mud, black and slippery, and who knew how deep. There was no path around it. I woke with a sense of apprehension, in view of what I wanted, but held back. I had to get John to take me across, I thought. Why wasn’t he with me? Or was he? The expanse of mud faced me and I knew that love existed only if I crossed.

I woke up with longing and fear. The mud sounded dry, the tunnel hollow, when I tried to tell John. He didn’t offer to build a bridge or a pontoon. I had thought he would know what to do.

We swirled real cream into our dark coffee in thick walled cups, made to chip not break. How deep had the mud been, I wondered. John made a paper ring and slipped it on my finger. Paper, I thought, it wouldn’t last. John wanted to go to the West End, so I dressed Miguel and me and the three of us went. On Regent Street John guided us to a jewelry store with rings in the window. The glass felt thick as… “I don’t want to get married,” I said. “I want you to ask me, to keep asking me for seven years.”

As if the money in his pocket were his emotions and I had rejected investment, the pride that had billowed our journey was gone with an almost audible puff.

I wanted it back, “Seven years, isn’t that common law?”

He never asked again; in less than three years we split up.

So I wonder, was there some way of mixing flowers and plaid, blue stripes and solid yellow, that would have prepared me to say yes?

Perhaps… but I think my mother, or someone, would have had to talk about lasting relationships.

Linens are my preferred antidepressant for two reasons. First, when my doctor put my on antidepressants she failed to explain that the side effects were weight gain and hair loss. Had it been hair gain and weight loss I would have been happy. But, no.

Second, having discovered that vitamin B12 replacement pretty much gets rid of the bad, deep depression, leaving behind only the kind that comes intermittently, sometimes from dwelling on a memory, sometimes from a sad occurrence, I save enough money on depression prescriptions to color my bedroom Happy.

Bedding Basics

Martha Stewart’s Geo Memory Foam may not be pretty but it works Fantastic! I was so tired, literally, from not getting a good night’s sleep due to pain, until I ordered one of these. 18″ deep sheets work perfectly with it.

There’s something else about the “Happy” and that’s that it’s soft. When I ordered this mattress pad I wasn’t expecting it to be different from others I’d ordered in the past, but in fact it’s very different. It’s genuinely pillowy. Though, it only stays that way if you reverse it so that the pressure isn’t always in the same place.

I love how my feet sink into it when I’m reading in bed. It’s lovely, soft and DEEP enough to work with a thick topper.

Negative Ions

Negative ions are created in pine forests, at the seashore, and, after rain storms there are a lot of negative ions. All of these places and times are known to make people feel better. In contrast there are very few negative ions in big city streets.

So to improve the “feeling” of your bedroom you might want to add a salt lamp for its ability to create negative ions.